Hate Mail

by Mark Morri

Sydney, 1998. Personal trainer Brett Boyd arrives home to find a package waiting in the driveway. It’s addressed to his girlfriend, model and part-time escort Simone Farrow. Hours later, Boyd is in hospital, fighting for his life. The parcel was a bomb that had exploded in his face, leaving him badly disfigured and lucky to be alive. Who was behind such a violent and calculated attack? What did they want? And why was the parcel addressed to his girlfriend?
Suspicion immediately falls onto Boyd’s former business partner, a rising TV star named Roberto de Heredia. But it turns out that there was much more to their ‘business’ than anyone had imagined, and the investigation leads straight to Kings Cross, the beating heart of Sydney’s organised crime scene that has just descended into chaos in the wake of a royal commission into police corruption.
De Heredia is soon arrested for the bombing, but while out on bail, he fakes his death and flees the country using a false passport. It’s not until years later, long after he thinks he is safe living under a different name on the sunny coast of Spain, that two Aussie cops unearth the cold case file and decide that it’s not over. And so ensues an international manhunt to see de Heredia extradited to Australia and brought to justice.
Veteran crime reporter and bestselling author Mark Morri has followed these extraordinary events since the very beginning, and this book is filled with extensive interviews with detectives, crooks and the star witnesses. HATE MAIL is a gripping account of one of Sydney’s most unbelievable and notorious cases, a story twenty years in the making.

Genres: True Crime

320 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2019

Reviews

[Andrew Tweedie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 1998 attempted murder of Brett Boyd leads to an intriguing account of the Sydney underworld. The corruption of a number of police comes as a surprise for all those who trust in the integrity of their uniform. The author writes with clarity and knowledge of events leading up to and including the the three trials which followed. Roberto de Heredia a rising TV star was the accused. He slipped out of Australia while on bail and for the next seventeen years lived in Spain enjoying the high life. Eventually due to the tenancity of the police he was found and extradited back to Australia to face the music. The third trial had a result l did not expect.

[kimm_ii · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story but petered out towards the end. Only ever hearing about this case & not knowing it in any great detail, I was ready for the verdict half way through the book. Although part of an underworld, it's still sad that Brett ended up taking his own life & no one was charged with his attempted murder, if, in fact, he was the intended murderee

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great reading well researched ,put me in touch with a darker side of Sydney I was in at the time

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely detailed so I found it frequently necessary to reread parts. Always interesting to read about places with which you are familiar.

[Ben Hamson · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a waste of money this book was. The author has clearly wasted twenty years of his life. (if that’s even true) to all my fellow bookworms, spend your money on something worth reading and not this diatribe.
Out of 5 stars I would not even give 1. May I have a refund please?